


Mac and Cheese and Heroism

by unnecessary_databass



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, If Only They Knew, Kara could not possibly be more annoyed, Lena always had a flair for the dramatic, how suspicious, oooh its gettin a little comic book action y yall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2019-10-25 04:59:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17718518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unnecessary_databass/pseuds/unnecessary_databass
Summary: When National City's Most Annoying Villain seems to need more help than policing, Supergirl's moral compass is really spinning in all directions. At least she has her totally innocent best friend Lena, who has never done anything wrong in her life, ever, and who Kara is most definitely not in love with.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> based off that tumblr post "Jesus christ eat the goddamn mac and cheese," scowls the hero "I can hear your stomach growling through your armor, you know."  
> The villain blinks "You--"  
> "Are feeding you, yes. If all I wanted to do was punch people and throw criminals in jail, I would've become a vigilante. Heroism involves kindness, dipshit."  
> (from tumblr user @corvidprompts. I can't seem to link the post rn)

“Not that this isn’t very gracious of you and all,” Dr. Kieran says, swallowing forcibly over a  _very_ large forkful of macaroni and stabbing another bite, this one impossibly larger somehow, “But precisely why are you feeding me?” She chews ridiculously fast, swallows again. “Aren’t we, I don’t know, enemies or something?”

Supergirl sighs. “Super hearing,” she explains, gesturing to her ears. “I could literally  _hear_ your stomach growling. It was driving me up the wall. Hurt me it was grumbling so loud. Don’t you supervillain types eat?”

Dr. Kieran gives her half a smirk, sarcastic and cold, just visible because of the way she’s pulled up the lower half of her balaclava. Supergirl can only see up to her mouth, and a jaw that can cut through glass. Somehow she’s woven lead filaments into her balaclava, effectively blocking x ray vision. “I’m  _so_ sorry,” she says in a voice that could somehow melt chocolate, clearly not sorry. “But you wouldn’t have to hear it if you weren’t in my way.”

Supergirl rolls her eyes and scuffs a boot absently. “Yeah, well, you were trying to blow up the very bridge we’re standing on. So, I sort of had to stop you. It’s in the contract.”

Dr. Kieran, who has shoveled another massive bite of macaroni and cheese into her mouth, glares pointedly at her feet, bound up in a special wire that she herself invented that Supergirl used against her. Supergirl had tied her up and been back in a flash with a Tupperware full of leftover mac and cheese, which Dr. Kieran had had accepted reluctantly before diving in ravenously. “The same way it’s in the contract of the city not to let people drive over faulty bridges?”

Supergirl hesitates. Frowns. Mutes the voice in her comms that’s been exasperatedly screaming bloody murder for the past minute and a half and asks carefully, “How faulty?”

Dr. Kieran narrows green eyes while pushing the remaining macaroni to the side of the dish to fork it up more easily. “Use that x-ray vision of yours. How many more weeks do you think it’s going to take of sixteen-wheelers coming in hot before the foundations crack even worse? It’s a bomb waiting to explode. I’d rather take it down now, when almost no one is on it, than wait for a pedestrian disaster.”

Supergirl hesitates further, then gives in. She looks down into the foundations of the bridge with her x-ray vision. She can’t totally see everything structurally from here, and earth architecture is different, but something definitely looks off, and a lot of things look strained. She glances up to see Dr. Kieran looking at her with an I-told-you-so expression. She flushes slightly that she didn’t realize that and sighs. 

“Look, I appreciate what your motive is, but you’re going about this kinda the wrong way. Blowing things up, think of the debris alone, polluting the bay–”

“Debris like the kind that springs up from all your fights? Polluting the bay like the oil spill from your first week on the job?”

Supergirl’s cheeks are on fire with indignant rage. “Why don’t you just make your usual clever escape and make me a fake promise to do no harm and all that, and I’ll see what I can do about this bridge, and I’ll see you next week?”

Dr. Kieran shovels the final forkful of macaroni into her mouth, swallowing at a near-superhuman speed. “Only because you’re so cute when you blush,” she says, winking. Without warning, she chucks the Tupperware and fork at Supergirl’s face and leaps over the railing, feet still bound and everything. 

Supergirl curses and bats the container out of her face, rushes into the air–it’s not that she  _cares_  about the villain, it’s just that she doesn’t think anyone should die if at all possible to avoid it, she is a superhero–but she’s gone.

“Clever escape as always,” Kara mutters angrily, and swoops to pick up her Tupperware. “Ingrate,” she adds to the air bitterly. Kara flies back to her apartment. Just another night as National City’s superhero. Perhaps she should change her title to Resident Supervillain Babysitter. It was like herding cats sometimes, honestly. Catch one and another is running for freedom, laughing like they can’t believe Supergirl will catch them. But she always does. Even if she has to feed them sometimes too. It’s exhausting. Kara sighs.

At least she has lunch with her best friend Lena to look forward to tomorrow. Kara frowns as she remembers Lena hasn’t been eating anywhere near enough lately and honestly looks like she’s been pulling all-nighters like a college student. She’ll have to bring her food too. 

 

\---

 

Kara catches hell for feeding that villain the next morning at the DEO. Well, hell like J'onn shaking his head and sighing “I suppose that  _is_ your trademark,” after letting Alex shout incredulously at her for three and a half full minutes. Kara stands slumped against the main control panel through it all while Winn definitely does not chuckle as she gets berated. Kara huffs a quick freeze breath at the back of Winn’s neck in retaliation, setting him to yelping like a puppy, and she has the brief satisfaction of seeing J'onn bite back a smile.

 Kara goes to work at CatCo, where she pitches an article about the sustainability of bridges around National City, gets shut down, tries again with a pitch about the dangers of old structures and gets the tentative go-ahead. She schedules interviews with all the right officials and gets to digging. She discovers, to her immense displeasure, that Dr. Kieran was correct last night, the bridge she was trying to blow up was old and several other whistle-blowers about that exact bridge have been silenced. Kara sets up interviews with them too and just like that, it’s time to meet Lena for lunch at L-Corp. 

Kara feels the familiar rush of anticipation in the walk up to Lena’s office, and the usual rush of relief as she sees Lena whole and smiling delightedly at her, the warmth that’s the same every time as Lena folds her into a hug. She ignores it all. This is totally normal to feel about your best friend. Totally normal.

“I brought your favorite,” she says, holding up containers of mac and cheese as she follows Lena towards the coffee table, and is rewarded with Lena’s grin. “Since I  _know_  you haven’t been eating enough, so don’t even think about telling me you had a big breakfast. You’re finishing this.”

Lena holds up her hands in surrender at Kara’s stern tone, walking backwards smoothly with one eyebrow slightly raised. “Yes, ma'am,” she promises, still grinning and taking the containers in her hands, and Kara relaxes slightly. “Not sure how you know I haven’t been eating enough, but I guess I’m on the naughty list until you deem otherwise.”

Kara trips over the carpet. Lena's eyebrow climbs higher. 

“You’re–you’re not–you’re not on the naughty list!” Kara splutters. Half of Lena’s mouth rises like she’s trying not to smile. “And don’t question my best friend powers! I know when you haven’t been eating.”

“Sees you when you’re sleeping, huh?”

“Oh shut up,” Kara mutters, face red and shoving at Lena, who’s smiling in full now. “We all know you don’t sleep, and that’s next on my list of things to fix.”

“ _So_  many dirty responses to that line I will keep to myself,” Lena says on the inhale, and Kara closes her eyes as they sit down on the couch, praying for either patience or something stronger. She opens her eyes to see Lena biting down on both her lips to keep her mouth shut on all the words she knows will render Kara speechless for a full thirty seconds. “Okay,” Lena says, handing Kara a container and picking up her own. “Talk to me, what’s the latest article?”

Kara waits for Lena to start eating before launching into her latest about the faulty bridge. Lena raises her eyebrows appreciatively. “Nice, Miss Ace Reporter.” Kara blushes. “Where’d you get the idea?”

Kara shrugs, not sure how to respond without giving herself away. “I was just chatting with Winn about some cool new building going up on the South Side, you know, and he mentioned how old some of the stuff in the city is, despite it being overall much newer than places on the East Coast. I got interested. Figured there was a story in there somewhere.”

Lena smiles like she knows something as she pokes at her dish in a way that reminds Kara strangely of… someone, she just can't quite put her finger on who. “I’m very impressed, Miss Danvers. Better it’s you raking the muck than someone who’d rather just blow it all up to get attention drawn, right?” Kara’s smile is a little held back in guilt (and okay, suspicion, but it was, as always, suspicion that was chased away with Lena's next smile) this time. It’s funny that Lena would phrase it like that. Lena took another thoughtful bite of macaroni. "This macaroni tastes familiar," she said slowly. "Any chance you share your recipe around? I could swear I've had it before."

Kara pulls a hopefully convincing thoughtful face before waving it off. "Negative, ghost rider. Secret family recipe. Not to be shared with anyone, including you, sorry."

Lena sighs dramatically. "I'll pry it from you one of these days, don’t you worry, Kara Danvers."

Kara's ears burn red as a hundred different scenarios in which Lena might get the recipe from her race through her head. Lena winks.

The next time Kara swoops in to square up against Dr. Kieran, it’s at an abandoned junkyard much like the one she landed in during her first days as Supergirl. Kara doesn’t bother scouting the location, it’d be hopeless in a place like this. She fights back a shiver at the memory of losing a fight that horrifically and lands a couple feet from Dr. Kieran, who’s standing nonchalantly in the center like she has all the time in the world. She smiles at Supergirl, who’s not in a good mood. She had to cancel lunch with Lena for this. Lena had mentioned she’d probably be stuck in a board meeting through lunch, but still.

 "What do you want to monologue about this time?“ Kara all but snaps, landing in a way that Alex has deemed her ‘powerful landing,’ slamming against the ground with barely the restraint not to send fissures into the dirt and rising from a half-lunge position. "And make it quick, if you don’t mind,”

Dr. Kieran seems delighted by her foul mood, and not at all intimidated, which makes Kara that much angrier. Green eyes sparkle, and though Kara can’t see her face, her balaclava seems to be reflecting the shape of a smile. “Hot date, Supergirl?” she asks.

 "Something like that,“ Kara mutters. "What are you doing here?”

“I see the lovely Miss Danvers writes a mean article,” Dr. Kieran says nonchalantly examining her nails, undeterred by the fact that they’re hidden by tactical gloves. Kara can practically hear Winn and Alex scowling through her comms. Kara narrows her eyes, as she can  _definitely_  hear Dr. Kieran’s stomach growl. “Truly, a shame that she couldn’t dig this one up in time.”

“Maybe I could talk to her, instead of whatever you’re about to do,” Kara says, not really hoping this will work, and hears Alex’s cautious  _don’t_  into her comms. 

“No need,” Dr. Kieran says. “Maybe next time, though. Even the power of the press needs some help from time to time, and this just so happens to be one of those times.”

“Why are you doing this,” Kara asks, irritation in her voice. “This destruction of public property? You seem smart enough to get what you want without it, even if you’re not smart enough to feed yourself.”

“Bold of you to assume this isn’t what I want. This isn’t a means to an end, Supergirl. This junkyard is dangerous. So are junkyards all around National City, all around the globe. I specifically chose this as the least dangerous ones, but it can still illustrate a larger point. And, no one will get hurt when I blow this one up.”

Kara frowned. “Why is it dangerous?”

“Toxins, to say the least,” Dr. Kieran said simply, loftily, and then she smiles, puts her hands in her jacket pockets casually. “You won’t be affected, but I’m sure you’ll figure it out. Or some enterprising young journalist will." 

And with that, she pulls out a remote and presses the button so swiftly and easily that Kara only has time to groan. She should have taken Barry up on those superspeed tactical training lessons.

 There’s a powerful explosion in the corner of the junkyard. 

Kara zooms over to see shrapnel go flying, and quickly scans the area. The only other humans around are the three who she assumes operate the junkyard, and they’re far from the explosion at the moment. She flies them to safety anyway, and without ceremony, and circles back to Dr. Kieran, landing in front of her and seizing the remote at superspeed. 

"Careful, Supergirl,” Dr. Kieran says, and Kara notes how easily she stands, how something must have gone according to plan. Dr. Kieran’s stomach growls again, and Kara growls herself. “There are sixteen other bombs on a dead man’s switch. I wouldn’t drop that remote if I were you, you’re lucky you grabbed it just the same way I was holding it.”

Kara can feel a whine building at the back of her throat. This is going to be  _so much work_. “Why do I feel,” she says dryly, angrily, “Like despite the fact that you have clearly neglected to eat, you haven’t neglected to give me an out?”

Dr. Kieran smiles. “Maybe I have, maybe I haven’t. And maybe I do have an out for you, but only if you beg.” Kara feels the heat build behind her eyes, the sound of her heat vision firing up, and something a little less blase crosses Dr. Kieran’s gaze. “Maybe if you with all your power promise me to look into this.”

“What does that mean?” Kara shouts, focusing on not crushing the remote in her grip, her heat vision barely fading. She knows her eyes are glowing, she’s just absolutely sick of always being a step behind this villain who never seems to tell her what she truly wants, so tired of cancelling on Lena, _so tired_ of hearing this damn supervillain’s stomach growling, _so tired_. “Look into what?”

“Look into the junkyard,” she says forcefully, intent all of the sudden. “Ask Miss Danvers. I hear it’s hard for journalists to write when nothing has happened, but now something has.”

“You set up at least seventeen explosives so Kara Danvers could write an article,” Kara repeats, deadpan. “Are you serious?”

“Well, yes,” Dr. Kieran quirks her head to the side, carefree again, and Kara feels like screaming. “And just to see your beautiful face again.” She winks, and Kara suppresses a scream. “And maybe,” Dr. Kieran adds slowly, propping her hands on her hips and taking a casual deep breath, “To get a free lunch.”

She eyes Kara. Kara feels her grip tighten in anger, and accidentally pulverize the remote, the one that’s supposed to set off sixteen other bombs. She flinches and looks around, waiting for the explosions, but nothing happens. Kara whips around to stare at Dr. Kieran, who shrugs delicately. “You lied?”

“I lie all the time,” Dr. Kieran says mildly. “And I told you, my goal isn’t to hurt people. The lovely Miss Danvers can take it from here. So, lunch?”

Her stomach growls loudly, punctuating the statement. Kara stares, totally at a loss for a coherent response to a totally incoherent situation. “You’re asking me out for lunch or you’re asking for lunch?”

“Whichever floats your boat. I’d gladly eat you ou–I mean, _eat out with you_ , of course, but either is good.”

Kara forcibly holds in a splutter of words and pinches the bridge of her nose. Takes a deep breath, in, out, and again. She forces the heat behind her eyes to fade.  _I will not heat vision a villain just because they’re annoying, I will not heat vision someone just because they’re annoying horrible, I will not put two burning holes through this woman just because she is infuriating._ “Stay here." 

Kara snaps the words and flies off, not before catching Dr. Kieran’s raised hands and her words, "Yes ma'am, Miss Supergirl.” Kara zooms across town and grabs her own lunch (well, her fifth lunch, but that’s not important) and is back in three and a half seconds.

“Here.” She shoves it into Dr. Kieran’s hands. She waits until the other woman has pulled up the lower half of her balaclava and begun to eat just as ravenously as last time. “So. You’re over your aversion of me feeding you?”

“I never had an aversion to you spoon feeding me.”

Kara’s fists clench, and she takes another steadying deep breath. She really, really hates this woman. So much. _So, so much_. She's not sure someone has ever gotten under her skin with so little effort before. Truly. “I mean, you seem to have changed your stance.”

Dr. Kieran smirks, and Kara notes absently that she really does have a superbly shaped pair of lips, not that that’s important. She takes another huge bite of Kara’s sandwich and rolls her eyes. “I never turn down free food from someone who I’m sure hasn’t poisoned me.”

Kara frowns. “People are trying to poison you? Why am I not surprised?”

“Ha ha,” Dr. Kieran says dryly, taking yet another massive bite and chewing like she’s been starved. 

“You know, eat any faster and the police might not get here in time,” Kara comments dryly.

 "That’s sort of the plan,“ Dr. Kieran shoots back.

"You know you can’t outrun me, right? Especially not here.” Kara gestures to the wide open space around them. 

Dr. Kieran shrugs. “We’ll see.” She’s three-quarters of the way through her sandwich now. Kara’s sandwich. “This is a little dry, by the way, did you put any dressing on there?” Kara’s indignant rage must show on her face, because Dr. Kieran chuckles. “I’m just saying, a little mayonnaise wouldn’t kill you. You are made of steel, right? Even if millennials are killing the mayonnaise industry, you don’t strike me as someone to join that war." 

Kara can feel her eyes, and her whole face for that matter, heating up. Dr. Kieran shrugs and grins with a wicked glint in her green eyes, sparking in the sunshine in a way that almost seems… familiar. Kara frowns as she chases a memory… that flutters away as Dr. Kieran whips a small gun-looking device from her belt and shoots it at Kara’s face, and something flies out like Spiderman’s web. Kara hisses in disgust, and by the time she’s freed her face of the icky contents, Dr. Kieran is gone. Kara sighs.

 _Not again_. 

—

Lena is totally understanding about lunch. She was in a board meeting anyway, she would have had to cancel on Kara if Kara hadn’t cancelled first. It still sucks. They agree to meet for dinner, and Kara cooks so that Lena will eat, she knows Lena pulled another two all nighters last week alone and she definitely didn’t eat enough to keep up with it. Since it’s a Friday, Kara’s hoping to keep Lena for a sleepover that has nothing to do with wanting to sleep next to Lena, thank you very much Alex, she just want to see Lena sleep and knows she can keep Lena in bed–not like _that_ , of course–for a couple more hours of desperately needed sleep if she’s there next to her, and make sure she goes to bed at a reasonable hour. It’s entirely for reasons of making sure her best friend lives another week, okay? Leave her alone. 

Kara finishes up her afternoon with a reluctant beginning to digging into the junkyard claims that the eternally infuriating Dr. Kieran made that afternoon. Naturally, she was pointing Kara down a fascinating trail of corruption and unsafe practices that made for excellent exposes. Kara hated it. Not only was Dr. Kieran annoying, _Kara_ was supposed to be the ace reporter, finding these things!

It didn’t matter right now. The junkyard dangers would be there tomorrow. What was important tonight was that Lena ate and slept and relaxed and they caught up as best friends and that Kara got in some cuddling. For psychological reasons. And cause it was their thing. Whatever. 

Lena looked, thankfully, a little more well-rested and satisfied than she usually did when Kara opened the door for her. She greeted Kara with a tight hug and a deep inhale and a grateful look towards the stove that turned into that smile that Kara swears could end wars. Lena frowned gently as she examined Kara’s face. 

"You’ve got a little something…” Kara felt her pulse flutter as Lena’s fingers slipped into her hair, and Lena looked in confusion at a small amount of the gunk Kara had had sprayed in her face earlier. “What is this?” Kara went for the playing dumb. She shrugged haplessly, and after examining it curiously for a second longer, Lena brushed it off and smiled. “Crawling in suspicious places for the reporting again, were we?”

“Maybe,” Kara said coyly, and Lena chuckled.

“Just try to come back to me in one piece each time, okay?”

“Always,” Kara promised, and from there it was easy again, easy to bask in the shine in Lena’s eyes over dinner as she talked about the latest junkyard article, sans any mention of Dr. Kieran, easy to coax Lena into a movie she inevitably fell asleep on Kara in front of, easy to carry Lena to bed and tuck her in and slip in next to her and turn out the lights and breathe easy. The annoying Dr. Kieran was somewhere far, far away, hopefully being annoyed by something else, and her favorite person was content and breathing easy next to her. 

 

\---

 

"Still feeling secretive about this, are we?" Kara just stuck her tongue out over her shoulder, and Lena's laugh echoed loudly in the walls of Kara's apartment. "Very mature," Lena said, still giggling, and Kara grinned, still stirring. It was a Dr. Kieran-free week, and Kara was very much enjoying time with Lena, who was both not a supervillain and not annoying, a combination Kara had previously thought was setting the bar pretty low but now appreciated anew. And Lena was acquiescing to Kara's demands that she _eat, please_ , even if it meant that Kara was cooking a quadruple batch of Eliza's mac and cheese.

"It's Eliza's secret recipe, and only family is allowed to see it. You'll have to marry in if you want it."

"I'd have to marry a Danvers sister to see the recipe?" Lena sucked in air through her teeth, pulling an _I-don’t-know_ face. "That's a pretty big ask."

"Sounds like a personal problem," Kara fired back nonchalantly, checking the recipe while making sure to shield it with her body from Lena's view. "It's your only option. And Alex is sort of already in a rather committed marriage to Maggie, I'm afraid."

"So I'd have to marry you," Lena mused, and Kara hummed an affirmative, distracted by grabbing a few different spices. Lena took a couple lazy steps over, winding her arms slowly around Kara's waist from the side, shifting so she was behind Kara and pressing in close. Kara forced herself not to go stiff-- _just keep stirring, just keep stirring, it's cool, it's cool, cool cool cool cool cool everything's fine, she's totally touching me but it's fine, it's whatever, I don't even care anyway_ \--and Lena smiled into the hood of Kara's sweatshirt. "That doesn't seem so bad," Lena murmured, moving to prop her chin on Kara's shoulder. "Coming home every day to you," Kara's half-fried brain distantly realized that only one of Lena's hands was still holding her, the other was reaching-- _son of a bitch._

"Ohh, _nuh uh_." Kara whipped the recipe book the mac and cheese magic was stored in off the counter and snapped it shut, spinning slightly out of Lena's grasp. "Nice try, Miss Seductress. You ain't getting it that easy."

Kara didn't realize how much she expected Lena to laugh until Lena very noticeably did not laugh. Lena's mouth didn't curl up in the slightest. Instead, she widened her eyes just a little, lower lip jutting out, and-- "Kara, I'd never _seduce_ you for your family's sacred macaroni recipe, what do you think I am, some kind of _supervillain_? Or, or--"

"Okay, slow down, whoa," Kara said, dropping the recipe book on the counter and leaving the spoon in the pot momentarily to reach for Lena, "I never said any of that, you're--son of a bitch, Lena!"

Lena did laugh this time, her arm caught in Kara's lightning fast grip as she reached for the recipe book again. "Sorry," she said, clearly not sorry. "I just had to try everything."

"Somehow I highly doubt you've actually tried everything you've got," Kara muttered, releasing her and shoving at her gently, and Lena laughed again. Kara bit back a smile. "You're banished from the kitchen," Kara added petulantly.

"What? No, Kara, don't do that," Lena said, barely holding back another laugh, and Kara pushed down the feeling of warmth in her chest that she hadn't heard Lena laugh this much in weeks, "Please, I'm sorry, I won't do it again, don't banish me," she said, slipping around the kitchen island and sitting down on one of the stools and folding her hands on the counter like an obedient schoolchild. Kara pushed down the thought that Lena sitting like that was positively adorable. "I still haven't even heard about your day!"

Kara rolled her eyes. "Fine. But," she said sternly, brandishing her spoon at Lena, who rolled her eyes fondly, "Go for the recipes again and I don't care what your last name is or how cute those puppy dog eyes are, you're banished."

Lena raised her right hand. "Yes, ma'am. Whatever you want."

 _Good god_.

 

\---

 

"Nearly two weeks this time," Kara called irritably, slamming down in the dust.

Dr. Kieran seemed to smirk through her balaclava. "Miss me?" she asked.

"Dreadfully," Kara deadpanned, crossing her arms and glaring at the other woman, a healthy twenty feet away and already annoying Kara. "Going to give me a reason why I shouldn't tie you up right now?"

"As much as I would _love_ to experiment with some bondage and you, Supergirl--" Kara nearly hit herself upside the head for walking into that one, so freaking annoying, annoying, _annoying_ , "--I do so happen to have a little something for you."

Kara narrowed her eyes as Dr. Kieran held up a flash drive and tossed it through the air. Kara caught it effortlessly and eyed it warily, fully expecting it to explode with something inconvenient inside. "That's it?" she asked, still wary. "No explosions?"

"I know I'm not quite your favorite person, Supergirl--"

"That's an understatement," Kara muttered, and Dr. Kieran ignored this.

"But this is bigger than my meddling around the city. I try to make the world a better place, a safer one, and even if you don't agree with my methods, you can at least acknowledge that I've never hurt anyone, and I think we both know that if I actually wanted to, I could have. None of my plans have had any lasting negative effects."

Kara ground her teeth together for a long moment, hating that she was right. "So what is this?" she finally asked, settling on the one part of this that didn't make her want to heat vision the human in front of her.

"Someone who's an _actual_ supervillain is coming into town. This is everything I have on her. I'm going to do my best to stop her, but despite my genius, I'm only one person and my resources are not infinite. A Kryptonian wonder woman on my side would doubtless stop countless casualties."

"You're asking me to team up?" Kara snorted. "You can't be serious."

"Look in the drive," Dr. Kieran urged. "Don't let a petty rivalry stop you from doing your job. I'm just giving you a heads up. And I'll take her on with or without you. The only difference is that with you, I might not die."

"You're not seriously threatening your own death, are you?"

Dr. Kieran tilted her head to the side, flirt gone for the moment. "I would never put the consequences of my actions on you," she said, quietly enough that if Kara didn't have super hearing, she would have missed it. Kara scoffed, but Dr. Kieran looked strangely serious. "But I do know that you'd deeply regret my death later if you don't help me out now." Kara opened her mouth, starting to get spooked by the way Dr. Kieran wasn't looking so carefree anymore, sure, she was annoying as all hell, but she was, all in all, supposed to be one of Kara's lighter duty villains. "There are a couple people who I like to believe would miss me," she said, sounding hopeful and unsure all at once, "And others who depend on me for their livelihood, but that's not--" she shook her head, "That's not what's important. What's important is what I gave you on that flash drive, that's your bigger fish to fry. Ignore that it's me it's coming from, take a look at the information, verify it, and tell me honestly that you aren't worried."

"And what do you want me to do if it turns out you're right?"

"I included a way to call me on there if you have any questions. But I don't suspect you'll need it. I'll trust you to do what's right and show up next to me when she comes to town."

Kara frowned, the abrupt change in pace sending her spinning. Dr. Kieran stood in front of her, looking serious and somber and worried, and Kara was holding information freely given with the hope that she'd help, what was she supposed to say? Dr. Kieran seemed to sense her hesitation, and cocked her head to the side with a hint of her earlier teasing.

"Do you need me to make a clever escape to give us back some normalcy?"

"You haven't technically done anything wrong this time," Kara sighed. "Just get out of here."

"Well, that's no fun," she said, practically pouting through the balaclava, teasing coming back to her traces. "I've gotta spice things up for you."

"No, don't--" too late. Dr. Kieran had already whipped out the same exact goo-gun she had from last time and shot Kara in the face again. Kara groaned loudly as she pulled it off her face again irritably. By the time she had extracted the ick from her face, Dr. Kieran was gone.

\---

"It's legit, Kara," Winn said, leaning back as the display shifted. Alex, Maggie, Kara and J'onn were gathered around his desk, all waiting with baited breath a day after Kara had flown back to the DEO and tossed the drive at Winn. "I checked every corner of it on an isolated secure server and ran every piece of data on that drive through every database and corner of the Dark Web that exists." He ran a hand through his hair. "Everything checks out, though I had to do some major digging to verify it all. The most suspicious thing about it is how she knows, honestly. That, and…"

"And what, Winn?" Alex asked, leaning forwards.

"It's probably nothing," Winn insisted, shrugging. "But her code looks strangely familiar on the contact backdoor. You can send her an encrypted message if you want, but that's the only place that she's got any coding, which is why I'm having trouble remembering where I might have seen it. It just… feels like someone's coding I've seen before. But it's probably nothing."

"That aside," J'onn said gruffly, "What does all the data _say_?"

"So glad you asked," Winn said, spinning in his chair to pull up a dozen different news articles. "It all points to one Lillian Luthor as the head of Cadmus, the anti-alien terrorist organization."

" _Lillian Luthor?_ " Kara interrupted. "Are you sure?"

Winn pointed at the monitor, where a bunch of pictures all labelled in different government fonts Lillian Luthor was in block letters. "Pretty sure, yeah." He waited until Kara had leaned back from the monitor before continuing. "The other main point of information is that she's going to sweep into town like a tornado and do some damage. And here's where the illustrious Dr. Kieran isn't so sure what she's going to do, but she's got a pretty good guess that Mama Luthor is going to attack the waterfront, and she's going to make it big. "

"The waterfront?" Maggie asked. "Like where Lena put up her super-crushing-on-Supergirl statue?" Kara rolled her eyes. It seemed that while they were touched on her behalf, they'd never let that joke go.

"That's the one," Winn confirmed, and Maggie grinned.

"Cool, continue."

Winn chuckled. "I mean, now that it's Futurama-Spaceship-Free but still a little weak structurally from all the hits it took last year, plus that everyone sort of thinks, you know, it's already been hit once! It won't get hit again! It's like, the perfect target for alien hater. Cause Supergirl is all yay-alien if they're good aliens. You guys get it."

"Sure," Alex muttered. "Strategically, this is the spot she's going to hit?"

"We're probably 87% sure."

"We?" Maggie asked.

"Dr. Kieran seems cool, you guys, I'm sorry. I know she annoys the living daylights out of you, Kara, and I'm sorry, but the way she put together this flash drive is actually really cool and she's really trying to do something good here."

Kara waved off his apology, not in the mood to discuss all the ways Dr. Kieran made her feel, and doubly eager to get out of the DEO so she could innocently grab Lena coffee on her way to work. "Do we have any idea when this attack is coming, and what direction it's coming from?"

"Ah," Winn said, spinning in his chair again and clattering his fingers against the keyboard rapidly. "Uh, we think sometime early next month. We've got at least three weeks, no more than four. And yes, we're positive it'll be then, Lillian Luthor is currently causing havoc in a South Siberian prison and needs to wait until someone she needs for this job gets brought in to her wing until she hatches her escape plan. And we'll hear when that goes down, and then it'll take her a day or two to get here, so we'll have a warning. As for direction… not a clue."

"Great," Kara muttered. She took a deep breath. "Okay. And we're sure that keeping her in a Siberian prison isn't the right play?"

"We don't really have that jurisdiction, nor should we stick the job on the Siberians," J'onn said, and Kara sighed. "Head to work Supergirl. We'll keep digging."

Kara nodded. "Keep me updated?"

"Will do," Winn promised. "And hey," he added, rolling his chair after Kara as she moved towards the exit, "Tell Lena her super-crush statue could use a polishing job."

Maggie and Alex's laughter followed Kara out of the DEO as she (gently) kicked Winn's rolly chair (still containing Winn) down the hall.

(Lena's surprised and delighted smile when Kara showed up holding her coffee was totally worth everything else that morning. Lena's artful dodging when Kara heard her stomach rumble turned into Lena rolling her eyes and promising to eat lunch with her. Lena's whole being made it a little hard for Kara to say goodbye and get to work.)

\--


	2. soft gear up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I blame graduation requirements being dumb and boring for this one

Lena's surprised and delighted smile was most definitely  not  what she gave Supergirl when she inquired after her mother. It wasn't a scowl, really, more of a frown. Not angry at Supergirl, Kara liked to think, standing awkwardly on Lena's office balcony that evening. 

"Why do you want to know about my mother?" Lena asked curiously as she leaned against the door, sounding half like she didn't want to know. She crossed her arms protectively over her chest and Kara was briefly visited with the insane impulse to wrap her cape around Lena.

"We've received intel that she's coming to town soon," Kara said heavily. "With, um, destructive intentions. We were just checking in."

Lena gave a cold laugh. "You know my mother doesn't include me in all her murderous designs. Probably disappointed I give my employees benefits at all, among other things about me she doesn't like."

Kara pushed down a million things that she would say in response to that if she were wearing glasses. "I just want--I'd like to request that you let me know if you hear anything about her movements in the next month."

Lena gave a mirthless half-smile. "You'll be the first to know, right after my security team," she said dryly. "But I doubt I'll hear anything."

Kara nodded. "Thank you, Miss Luthor." She lifted off gently into the night, missing Lena's relieved sigh. 

 

\---

 

The next month passed in a blur of crystal-clear moments and sunlit days filled with a warmth she didn't know why she felt the need to try and soak in. The DEO monitored everything they could about the Siberian prison, and Kara was texted updates every six hours. For three weeks, she pushed the fear away. They had laid a thousand dumb and naive plans for how they might capture Lillian before she wreaked her havoc and ultimately decided that they'd fight the battle when it came. Kara enjoyed an easy few weeks of Supergirl duty, filled with only light muggings and a couple good fistfights that she won handily. 

Even better, Lena seemed to share her mood, getting out of the office earlier to join Kara for dinner most nights. Her only concession to their time was that whenever Kara turned on a movie, Lena was working on her laptop, typing away diligently and eyes barely flickering to the screen. Kara glanced at the code once or twice but gave up trying to figure out what Lena was working on--Lena refused to tell her, and though she meant to, she had never learned to code. Lena always chuckled when Kara looked at her with puppy dog eyes, begging her to put the work away, but she didn't stay off the laptop for long. Lena went back to work most nights after a few hours in Kara's company, disappearing down to her lab for "just a few special projects, darling. Nothing I'm sure you won't dig up in due time."

"Please, Lena, let me come with you? I love seeing what you're working on."

Lena eyed her carefully, standing in the doorway poised to leave, purse already on her shoulder. They were in Lena's apartment that evening, and Kara had enjoyed a rare dinner of Lena's cooking that wasn't off in some way--Lena tended to get thoughts or ideas or phone calls mid-preparation and forget to salt a dish or pull something out of the oven on time--and though Lena had typed all through  Pride and Prejudice and Zombies  she hadn't blinked at Kara eating sixteen cupcakes on her couch while pressing into her shoulder. Then again, she probably hadn't noticed. 

Kara put on her best puppy dog eyes, adjusting her glasses and definitely not intentionally sniffling. Lena sighed. Kara smiled hopefully. "I'm sorry Kara," Lena said, shaking her head regretfully. "But if I wouldn't let any of my employees even talk about this project to the people in their lives, I can't do it myself."

Kara groaned dramatically, giving Lena a small smile to let her know she wasn't  too  upset. "You and your sexy ethics," Kara grumbled, and Lena grinned. "Fine!" Kara said, throwing up her hands and stomping extra-dramatically around to the sink, just to see if she could make Lena smile. "Go. I'll just stay here and do the dishes like a 1950's housewife."

"You are aware this is  my  apartment, right? And that we're not married?" Lena sounded dreadfully amused as Kara rolled up her sleeves and turned on the water. 

"Semantics," Kara scoffed over her shoulder, grabbing a dish at random and beginning to scrub.  
"I think you mean  pedantics,"  Lena offered, her voice a little closer. "Though I don't think that's a real word."

"You and your big brain and your six degrees," Kara said, in the same scoffing tone, unable to get through the line without a giggle at the end, and glanced over to see Lena's mouth open in mock-outrage, her purse carefully deposited on a bar stool, Lena herself only a couple feet away.

"I do not have  six  degrees!"

"Seven?" Kara tried, scrubbing at a different dish now, the first one not clean at all and a tingly warmth all through her body. "Or eight? I forget. Though I might be counting one of your Nobel Prizes as a degree."

"I do  not  have a Nobel Prize--"

"Yet."

"And I only have  three  degrees, and two of them were from a double major in undergrad--"

"Two more than me," Kara offered, sticking her tongue out, and Lena rolled her whole head along with her eyes, biting down on both lips to stop herself from laughing, and Kara felt the little glow in her stomach growing brighter.

"Well," Lena murmured, slipping her arms around Kara's waist gently and squeezing, tight. " You have plenty of achievements I couldn’t dream of, Kara Danvers." She kissed Kara on the cheek. 

Somehow all Kara could hear was her own breath and her own pulse, her world narrowed down to not breaking the plastic spatula in her hand. Lena's low laugh echoed in her ear and Kara shook her head to turn around and see Lena standing at the front door, purse back in hand, smiling back at Kara with her whole body. 

"Don't forget to dry the dishes, honey," she said with a wink. "And don't wait up." 

Lena disappeared out the door, leaving Kara to notice dimly that the hot water was still running and then have a silent, victorious dance party to herself.

 

\--

 

Kara, 12:30 am: _you gonna sleep tonight?_

Lena replied thirty seconds later. _Why do you ask, Danvers?_

Kara sent back the eye roll emoji, ignoring the flush on her face. _Just trying to see if I can steal your extra soft bed or I need to go home to my mediocre one._

_Your bed has a homemade quilt and it’s nearly as soft, don’t hate on it. But you’re welcome to stay. I might run home for a shower and power nap though._

_What time?_

_Maybe 3?_

_Lena. You need sleep._

_Hence the power nap. You should go home, I don’t want to wake you up, and you’ll have to get up earlier to be dressed for the day tomorrow._

_Tomorrow’s Saturday._

_Oh. Huh. I might be home at 4 then and sleep for six or so hours before going back in. Maybe 5._

_Lena for the love of god_

_Did you finish the dishes? You know you didn’t have to right_

_You cooked me dinner and didn’t bat an eye at the concept of me stealing your bed, I can do the dishes. They were done hours ago. Like, five minutes after you left._

_Thank you darling_

_Come hoooooome_

_I gotta get back to work. Go to bed, I’ll be there before you know it._

_Lena_

_Lena_

_Leeeenaaaaa_

 

But she refused to answer another message. Kara sighed and sent her a final “ _fine, but if you’re not showered and in this bed by 6 am I am dragging you out by your thousand dollar belt and I won’t bring you kale for a month_ ” before brushing her teeth (she kept a toothbrush at her best friends house, nothing weird about that) and slipping into Lena’s expensive sheets with a satisfied sigh. She fell asleep in minutes. 

“No, I am not in over my head—don’t make me regret trusting you with this.” Kara drifted awake to the door closing softly and Lena’s irritated tones sifting through layers of sleep. “I have it handled. I have her in on the case and I know she brought in her team. Yes. I have it as handled as it can be—well it’s not my fault what we’re facing is the human version of cyclone now is it, I did all I could do and you know this....yes. Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

Kara blinked blearily as Lena stepped into the room, holding her shoes to avoid waking Kara. Kara glanced at the clock. “6:17,” she mumbled. “You’re late.”

Lena’s sharp lines faded away, softening at Kara’s stretch across the bed. 

“I’ll be showered in five,” she murmured. “Promise. Go back to sleep.”

Kara nodded and blinked to find Lena lifting the sheets next to her, slipping in beside her with damp hair and expensive shampoo filling her nose pleasantly. 

“Mm,” Kara sighed, rolling over to curl up and face her. “A six-thirty am bedtime. How does that feel?”

“Like shit,” Lena admitted. “But not as shitty as it could be.”

“Get a lot of work done?” Kara yawned. 

“Steady progress.” Kara waited, but Lena didn’t seem to be forthcoming with any more information. After a few moments of deep breathing, Lena turned on her side to face Kara, their noses less than a foot away. “What about you? I left close to nine, you were up past midnight.”

Kara struggled to remember the events of the evening, which had largely been reduced to the highlights surrounding Lena in her half-asleep memory. 

“Umm....” she squeezed her eyes shut and it came to her. “I invaded your directv. And annexed your oven for some breakfast stuff.”

She opened her eyes to find Lena smiling gently at her. “You made me breakfast last night?” Kara nodded. Lena smiled a little deeper. “Well thank you,” she said genuinely, scooting closer to Kara. Kara rolled onto her back and held out an expectant arm. Lena pillowed her head on Kara’s shoulder, and Kara wrapped an arm around Lena’s back, smiling into her hair as she breathed in her scent. 

“Go to sleep,” Kara murmured, tapping clumsily against Lena’s back with gentle fingers.

Lena giggled. “You told me to do that earlier. I loved your texts, by the way. Does tomorrow’s breakfast have kale?”

“You don’t deserve it,” Kara slurred, and Lena laughed quietly into Kara’s shoulder. “This is probably the reason Maggie thinks we’re secretly dating,” Kara sighed, drifting towards sleep. 

“Screw Maggie’s assumptions,” Lena said, voice muffled. “We do our own thing.”

Something felt off, Kara thought distantly, but she was too warm and sleepy and Lena’s finger was tracing light circles into her opposite shoulder, Lena’s damp hair pressed to Kara’s nose and everything smelled fresh and clean. This was about making Lena feel like she could go to sleep. 

“Mm,” Kara agreed. “She also thinks you have a huge crush on Supergirl, so she’s probably pretty off base.” Lena’s laugh bordered on hysterical, and Kara grinned, shushing her after several moments. “Go to sleep, you crush-crazy genius.”

Lena curled closer and passed out in seconds. 

 

Lena stayed passed out when Kara woke up at 8 and snuck out the window to stop a quick robbery and take a lap by Lena’s favorite fresh fruit stand. Kara woke her up as gently as possible for a quick breakfast so her eating schedule didn’t get too far off. Kara blushed as Lena moaned when she bit into the coffee cake she had made last night. 

“Come on,” she said, rubbing Lena’s shoulders once she had finished. “You’re going back to bed.”

“But I’m up now,” Lena said, casting around for her laptop. 

“No,” Kara said firmly. “Absolutely not.” She dug her thumbs a little deeper into Lena’s shoulders and Lena moaned again, dropping her head onto the kitchen counter. 

“You don’t play fair, Danvers.”

“Never said I did,” Kara shot back lightly. “Come on, super slugger. You’re sitting this morning out. I’ll wake you up for lunch and then you can stay up.”

“...fine. But don’t stop that massage.”

Kara ignored a tickly feeling and chuckled. “Two more minutes,” she promised. “Then I’m taking you to bed.” 

Kara felt her face heat up as she realized what she said, but Lena didn’t seem to be able to pick her head off the table to give her crap for it. Kara did her best to ignore the soft sounds Lena made and the way her back arched under Kara’s touch for the required 210– she meant, 120– seconds before she slowed her hands down, gently reaching for Lena’s knees with one arm and scooping her up. Lena slung her arm across Kara’s shoulders lazily, automatically, head lolling into the crook of Kara’s neck. 

Kara paced them gently back into the bedroom, feeling warm all over at Lena’s unblinking trust and welcome of her into her life, her mornings, her tiredness. Kara set Lena down gently and pulled the sheets over her. She placed a gentle kiss to Lena’s forehead and made to leave, but Lena’s arm shot out and fingers curled around Kara’s wrist, tugging gently. 

“Stay,” she murmured. 

Kara stayed. 

On the nightstand, her phone buzzed with a message from the DEO. 

_Lillian Luthor has escaped the Siberian prison. She’ll be here in 24 hours._


	3. i made the words work! sorry for the wait, i was upset about it too

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there'll be one more chapter

 

"You tracked what coming into the city?"

"Kryptonite," Winn said grimly. "See its radioactive signature? I don't know where she got it. But," he faltered, fingers dropping off the screen slowly. "There's a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Like," Winn hesitated. "I know your anti-Kryptonite shield is in good condition, but… I'm gonna keep working on some modifications. Some additions."

Winn scrambled out of his chair and all but sprinted back to his lab. Kara looked at J'onn and Alex, their arms cross and brows furrowed identically, trying to decide whether or not she should be afraid.

Alex leaned in and examined Winn's abandoned screen. She leaned back, looking concerned. "Kara, I…"

J'onn put a hand on her shoulder. "Spend the rest of the day however you'd like, Supergirl. We'll text you any pertinent updates and expect you here at four in the morning."

Kara felt a sick swoop of her stomach. "You guys don't think I'm gonna make it?"

"We don't think you'll make it through unscathed," J'onn corrected. "I have every faith in you."

Kara smiled slightly. "But you're worried. You're giving me the day off instead of preparing."

Alex shrugged. "You're as prepared as you can be, honestly. Winn's working on the final stuff you might need. If you want to spar, we can, but we'd rather have you rested. Take a nap, get some food, lie in the sun."

"You two are acting weird," Kara informed them. "Like, scary weird. What aren't you telling me?"

J'onn took a deep breath and patted Alex on the shoulder, turning and walking away slowly. Kara eyed Alex. Alex took a deep breath. "Lunch?"

 

Kara sat down opposite Alex in their favorite restaurant. "Okay, what's up?"

Alex drummed her fingers on the table. "J'onn's worried," she admitted. "But not for the reasons you think."

"Okay," Kara said slowly. "Why is he worried?" Alex picked at the edge of the table, twisting her lips to the side. " _Alex_."

"He… he wants your circle to be ready."

"You know English isn't my first language."

Alex huffed. "He wants you to bring in Lena, okay?"

"What?" Kara sat back, reeling. "J'onn? Mr. Don't Tell Anyone?"

"He doesn't want you to tell her, obviously. He wants Supergirl to bring in the woman with an impeccable record of going against her mother and a big heart and a brain full of Kryptonian knowledge."

"Why?" Kara was bewildered. "Are you guys that concerned?" Alex bit her lip. "Or are you seriously still on the Lena might be evil train?"

"No!" Alex said hastily. "We're worried about her. That she might be kidnapped. Might be used as a weapon. Even if you spent most of the day with her today, she'd probably be more protected."

"Lena has her own security team," Kara said cautiously, sitting back.

"Like Lillian couldn't overwhelm them," Alex scoffed, and Kara had to admit she had a point. "Honestly, Kara, you can't tell me you haven't thought of this already?"

"Lena can protect herself," Kara said automatically, before propping her chin on her hands. "I mean… there isn't any other reason you want her in the DEO?"

"It'd be nice to have her brain," Alex admitted. Kara raised an eyebrow. "Okay," Alex said, "So we want our bases covered. Can't you just accept that I'm her friend too? That I want to make sure my friend is safe when her murderous adoptive mother comes to town with the mission of destruction?"

"Which we still don't know what it is," Kara pointed out in a hushed voice, accepting their drinks from the waiter. "She could just be here to, I don't know, say hi, and she's just suspicious in general."

"She just escaped from a Siberian prison with a notorious terrorist convicted of kidnapping six aliens in tow, Kara. We'd have to arrest her immediately even if she was here to make amends." Alex dropped her head a little to meet Kara's eyes. "And you can't tell me you don't want to personally make sure your _best friend_ is as protected as possible? Your genius best friend who's probably capable of saving your life if everyone else is occupied for the reason of a homicidal maniac being on the loose?"

"That's not fair," Kara muttered.

"Kara, please. Let me cover all our bases. Bring her in. For her own safety. You guys can play cards and watch movies and do whatever. Just bring her in after dinner, as Supergirl or as Kara or whatever. Please, whatever it takes, get it done."

Kara picked her head up to look at Alex's sincere pleading. She considered. "I'll see what I can do."

 

Kara touched down on Lena's office balcony right after lunch to see she wasn't there.

Kara hesitated, thinking with a bitter satisfaction that maybe it was meant to be. Maybe Lena shouldn't be in the DEO. Maybe…

"Supergirl? What can I do for you?" Lena had walked in the door while Kara was lost in thought.

"Your mother," Kara said, more abruptly than she'd have liked, wincing at her own voice. "She's almost here."

Lena's jaw tightened. "I see," she said smoothly.

"Yeah," Kara said lamely. She took a deep breath and stood up a little straighter. "We were wondering if you could come in."

"Come in? To the DEO?"

"Um, yes."

Lena didn't seem speechless, exactly, but more like she was trying to figure out a math problem that had been changed under her nose. "Why?" she asked.

"We're, uh, worried she'll come after you. We'd like to protect you. Have you on hand? With your, you know, science and stuff, in case anything that's, um, your expertise comes up."

Kara cursed her own stumbling for words, but Lena didn't seem to notice. Lena had a look in her eyes that Kara recognized as the one that only came up when everything was sliding. "I had plans for the rest of the day," she said slowly. "Important plans."

"After dinner," Kara revised. "If I could pick you up around eight?"

"Even more important plans then," Lena said. Kara paused. _Weren't they having dinner at seven?_

"More important than your safety? I can push it to eight-fifteen."

Lena looked trapped, desperate, and Kara couldn't figure out why. "I don't see why you need me there, really, I could be much more useful and safe here, in L-Corp."

"It's not about being useful, we don't want to force you to do anything, but you have expertise and we have equipment that would help, only if you want to, it's about your safety." Kara was drawing a total blank as Lena ran in circles trying to get out of this. Lena's mouth was slightly open, her eyes a little wider with panic, and Kara sighed internally, resolving to try a different tactic. "I have to go, Miss Luthor, but I'll be back for your answer?"

Lena nodded, still looking halfway to panicked.

Kara wasn't entirely proud of it, but she resorted to her Plan H and flew in a circle and came back as Kara. She knocked on Lena's office door to find her friend pacing  and talking to herself.

Lena glanced up when Kara came in with a container of macaroni and cheese, giving her half a strained smile. "Lena? What's wrong?"

"Oh, it's nothing," Lena said, sitting down and patting the seat beside on her couch. "I didn't realize we had plans for a second lunch as well as dinner?"

"I doubted you ate," Kara said apologetically. "And it's not like you've been eating enough anyway. I was in the neighborhood, though I'd drop by."

"You told me no less than six times to eat before you left my apartment like three hours ago," Lena said, looking like she was trying to laugh but doing a bad job at it.

"And did you?"

"….some?"

"Eat the macaroni," Kara said sternly, leaning back. Lena made an _okay, okay_ face and took the container and fork Kara handed her. Kara leaned back on the couch. "What's got you pacing in the middle of the day?"

Lena poked at the macaroni. "People want me places."

"That's not unusual, right?"

Lena took a mouthful and chewed slowly. "I need to be somewhere other than where people want me."

"Does it have to do with work?"

Lena shook her head. "It's still what I need to do, though. I mean, where I need to be. The people who want me to be somewhere else are… well-intentioned and insistent." She stabbed through some more pasta.

"Can you do what you need to do from wherever the people want you to go?" Lena shook her head. "Did you promise someone you'd be where you need to be?"

"Sort of," Lena muttered. "I mean, I did, but the people that want me to go…" she shook her head. "It's um. I'm sorry. I'm using a lot of hypotheticals and pronouns and," she looked up and smiled disarmingly at Kara, and Kara felt Lena's walls not slam up again, exactly, but move so Lena was showing her a different, not-complicated side of her. "What brings you to this neck of the woods?"

Kara bit back her annoyance. "Lena, I want to help. Talk me through it. I don't mind the hypotheticals or pronouns."

"It's nothing, darling," Lena said airily, waving it aside, and Kara felt her frustration bubbling just beneath the surface. "What were we planning for dinner, anyway?"

"Lena. What's going on?"

"It's _fine,"_ Lena soothed, rubbing a consoling hand from Kara's knee to her mid-thigh, but Kara felt nothing at the touch that would usually melt her. "I'll be where I need to be, and they can deal with it."

Kara felt her stomach sink. Somehow in the space of lunch with Alex to bringing it up twice with Lena, Kara had gotten worried. She needed Lena safe in the DEO, Alex and J'onn had been right. She didn't think she could think straight while fighting--whatever it was she would be fighting--tomorrow morning if Lena wasn't safe, now that someone had brought it up.

Kara leaned back and stared at the ceiling, taking deep breaths and focusing on Lena's hand, resting on her knee, thumb swiping reassuringly across the side. Warmth, love. She wasn't losing this. She was not.

_Whatever it takes._

Kara jumped up and began to pace Lena's track in the carpet, ignoring Lena's mildly alarmed look as she put the macaroni on the table. "Okay," she said, taking deep breaths. "Okay, okay, I have to tell you something." Kara stopped pacing at faced Lena. "And before I do, I want you to know that I didn't tell you before not because of your last name or anything dumb like that, but because I wanted to keep you firmly in my normal life okay? We can discuss that later. The point is…" Kara took a deep breath, and let the truth spill over. "I'm Supergirl."

Lena laughed half-heartedly. "Is this one of those pranks that circles around the internet? The cinnamon challenge? Like, if you're a pretty blonde girl, tell someone you're Supergirl?"

Kara growled. "It's not a joke."

Lena frowned. "Kara, you can't seriously be telling me, I mean I know you disappear suspiciously all the time and you eat like a freight train and are super strong, but we've been best friends for two years, you can't be… you can't be."

Kara sighed, closed her eyes. She opened them to see Lena's half-smile, skeptical and questioning. Kara nodded, and reached around to pull out her ponytail and pull off her glasses. Lena's eyes went wide and she shook her head, standing unconsciously to move closer to Kara in disbelief. Kara nodded again, and lifted a foot off the floor.

"Oh my god, no," Lena said, looking at Kara in something like dawning horror, eyes flickering between the balcony where Supergirl had just been and where Kara stood now. She looked like she was putting together a million other puzzle pieces but didn't voice them. "No, you can't be, it can't be you. It can't be."

"What does that mean?"

"Kara, please tell me it's a trick. Please."

"No, it's not a trick, why are you so--" Kara felt a buzz in her back pocket, and pulled out her phone to see a message from the DEO. _Timeline sped up. Get here ASAP for a briefing._ "I don't have time for this, Lena, I'm sorry for lying to you, for keeping this from you, but listen--" Kara took her wrists gently and led Lena back to the couch, sat them both down. "Lena, I need you to come in. I need you to be safe."

"Kara…"

"Lena, Lillian is coming in with Kryptonite. A lot of it. They're worried about me making it out of this unscathed." Lena looked sick, but Kara kept going. "I'm sorry, and I hate to do this, but I really do have to go, the timeline just sped up." Kara stood, leaving Lena with her jaw working soundlessly on the couch. "I'll be back," Kara promised. "Can I pick you up at quarter to seven?" Kara edged towards the door, unwilling to leave until Lena looked at her, feeling awful about the abrupt rushed-ness and horrible uncertainty of it all. "Lena?" Lena looked up. "Quarter to seven?"

"Was it real?" Lena asked quietly.

Kara blinked. "Was what real?"

"Us."

Kara rushed over and knelt next to Lena, took her hand. Lena looked at her blindly. "All of it was real. It was so real I didn't want to bring in my laser vision and lost planet."

Lena blinked several times, focusing on Kara. She swallowed. Opened her mouth. "I… I have to tell you…"

Kara's phone buzzed again. _NOW._ "We're continuing this," Kara said firmly. She rocked forward and kissed Lena's forehead. "I'll be back, I'm sorry, I have to go if I want to live through the next twenty four hours. Which I will," she promised as an afterthought.

"Go," Lena said in a low voice, not meeting her eyes. "Be safe."

Kara nodded and stood. "Three hours," she said. Lena still wouldn’t meet her eyes. Her phone buzzed again. Kara swore in Kryptonian and sped from the room.

 

"Okay, here's the sitch," Winn said, speaking at halfway to double his usual speed. He continued at speed and a half as he threw some pictures of suspicious looking individuals and diagrams of syringes and more pictures of aliens clutching their throats up on screen. "Lillian has teamed up with some deeply unsavory buddies she made in Siberian prison, which lead me to think she was there on purpose, but that's not the point. What _is_ the point is that Crazy Mama Bear and Friends have decided they need to protect all the humans on earth by, wait for it, killing all the aliens."

"Makes sense," Alex muttered, grimly sarcastic, arms crossed and bitter.

"Yup," Winn said, rolling his eyes in disgust. "Remember the Thanksgiving debacle where Lena saved our asses? Lillian's literally trying the exact same thing again, except we're pretty sure she's planned it out way better. No bazookas. Just a slow acting agent that, released into the atmosphere, will slowly make every alien on the planet get sick and die, or possibly turn into something human-adjacent, depending on their constitution. Super uncool. But basically, she's gonna cause a lot of chaos to distract us, then unleash this agent. We won't know if she's released it or not, because no one will feel it for a pretty long time. But once she releases it, it's game over. Slow, horrible game over. A Holocaust we can't stop, specifically engineered to cause as much suffering as possible no matter the species of alien. So we need to stop it."

"I assume you have a plan," J'onn rumbled, shifting his weight.

"We do!" Winn said brightly, and Alex's eyes narrowed.

"We?"

"Ah. Don't get mad," Winn said cautiously, eyeing Kara. "I know you hate her, but I sent a message to Dr. Kieran with what we found, and the illustrious Dr. K and I have a plan. "Supergirl," Winn said, pointing at her hopefully, "You protect Dr. K from whatever Lillian does to stop her, and Dr. K will stop Mama Luthor's sticky icky serum from going global."

Kara shifted her weight. "Does it have to be Dr. Kieran? I can work with her if I have to, but I'd prefer you or Alex or even Lena, she stopped it last time. Why can't we stop it the same way we did then? Lena could do it again."

"That's why we want to bring Lena in," Alex said, frowning thoughtfully, "But I looked over the research with Winn and I actually think I'm with Dr. K on this one. Lena's brilliant, but so is this woman. She's been putting in the hours, too. She shared her chemical formulas and how she's going to science our way out of this. I think Dr. Kieran is the single person most poised to take down Lillian if you're protecting her. I'd love to have Lena as backup though. Are you bringing her in?"

"Lena," Kara said, exhaling forcefully through her nose, "Apparently has _prior arrangements."_ She held up a hand. "I don’t wanna hear it, but I told her who I am. Still no cigar. I'll drag her here kicking and screaming if I have to, but I'll get her here."

Alex looked like she was biting down on some comments, but she nodded. "You can go after her in a minute. Right now we need your go-ahead on working with Dr. Kieran on this one, and then you should go and check out the Waterfront, make sure you know the ins and outs of the place, check the conditions and all that. Lillian will be here before the dawn, and it's nearly dark."

Kara took a deep breath and let it out. "Tell her if she flirts with me one more time I'll chuck her into the ocean when this is all over, but yes, I'll be by her side."

Winn bit down on a giddy grin despite the gravity of the situation. "Aye aye, Supergirl. You'll probably end up chucking her into the ocean, but I'll pass along the message anyway. We'll keep you updated. Go check out the Waterfront and pick up Lena."

 

"Alex," Kara panicked into the comms twelve minutes later.

"What is it? I’m here."

"She's not," Kara said, x-raying everything. "I checked her apartment first, came back to her office, I've surveyed the whole building, I can't kidnap her if someone else beat me to it!"

"Breathe," Alex commanded. "Did you call her?"

"Four times!"

"You said you just told her about Supergirl?"

"Yes," Kara groaned. "She must have panicked and gone and done something stupid, Rao, I'm so stupid--"

"Focus," Alex said firmly. "Where else would she have gone? Favorite restaurants, another apartment, somewhere else she'd hang out--"

"Alex, I've checked _everywhere._ If anyone could find her, it'd be me. I can't," Kara took a deep, stuttering breath, "I can't hear her heartbeat. I don't know if she has some kind of heartbeat cloaking tech or a lead lined panic room or she was actually kidnapped, I think I'd have heard if she actually were kidnapped and there's no sign of a struggle so that can't be it, I don't know, I don't know why I don't know about this, Lena's always had her secrets but I always trusted her good intentions, why is she hiding, why is she gone, I can't think, Alex--"

"Deep breath," Alex commanded. "Just come back here for now. We have to do more, we have to trust Lena can take care of herself right now, we'll keep a double lookout, but Lillian's going to unleash some chaos on the Waterfront to cloak her plans with the bioterrorism and you _know_ that if Lena's going to show up anywhere it's there, it's Murphy's Law."

Kara moaned, pressing her palms into her head. "So _stupid,"_ she gasped. "Both of us."

"I know, I know, but Kara, more people are about to need you _now._ I'll go looking for Lena. But where would she want you to be?"

"…I'm on my way."

 

Winn suited her up with the anti-kryptonite shield, looking grim as he did. "Kick ass, take names," he told her with a half-hearted smile. "Save lives."

Kara took a deep breath and gave him a half-hearted grin in reply, trying to look reassuring, trying to take her mind off Lena. Alex was trying to track her down. Lena was smart. She'd be alright. More people needed Kara now.

Kara flew to the Waterfront.

She slammed down into the concrete with force just shy of enough to send splinters into the pavement. She turned at the sound of a low whistle in the dark. "Dr. Kieran," Kara greeted civilly, crossing her arms as she straightened up.

Dr. Kieran wasn't quick to make a witty reply, for once. She was removed strangely of all flirt, and her expression in the dark, through the balaclava, looked as though she'd rather Supergirl be anywhere else. "You got my messages. Thank you. But you don't have to be here if you don't want to." she said quietly.

Kara frowned. "We'll make it through. We just need to work together."

Dr. Kieran gave a humorless laugh. "Do you have any idea what Lillian Luthor is capable of?"

"Do you?" Kara shot back.

"I don't think even Lillian knows what she's capable of," Dr. Kieran sighed, and turned to watch the sky. There was something almost _familiar_ about the way she said Lillian's name, and Kara was about to ask how she knew her, but Dr. Kieran derailed her. "I don't know what's coming. I know it'll be here. Goons and machine guns and kryptonite, probably. They're expecting you. Your job is to keep me alive and get me to the chemical dispersal agent. Then you can join your teams in damage control. I assume you've evacuated everyone nearby?"

"Of course."

"Good," she sighed. "Then hopefully no one will be hurt. At least not any civilians." She faced Kara. "Are you ready?"

"Ready as I can be," Kara answered, trying to find clues in the green eyes shining in the streetlamps.

Dr. Kieran nodded. "Then we wait."

 

Dr. Kieran fidgeted. Obsessively. She'd twiddle her thumbs--Kara had always thought that was a figure of speech, but now Dr. K's gloved thumbs circled each other and pressed together forcefully and repeated it all over and over, and sooner or later it was driving Kara crazy. Kara was half-freaking out about Lena still, and Dr. Kieran was _not_ helping, projecting an aura of nervousness Kara didn't think she had in her.

"I can feel you freaking out from here," Kara finally huffed, an hour and a half into the waiting. "Chill, okay? You're not gonna make her come any faster like that."

Kara winced as she realized how what she just said could be construed, but Dr. Kieran didn't even seem to notice the innuendo this time, a sign something was surely wrong. "Sitting here doing nothing still sucks," she pointed out eloquently, her tone sounding vaguely familiar. Kara grunted in agreement, and they went back to waiting.

About twenty minutes later, Lillian came with a fleet of distant helicopters and a mighty shake of the earth.

Kara staggered as the ground shook violently, and what was left of the apparently underwater explosions blew upward, coating the pavement with seawater spilling. The helicopters were getting closer at an alarming rate. "I think she's here," Kara muttered, and Dr. Kieran snorted despite her seriousness. "Where do you need me to take you?"

"I don't know," she muttered, eyes searching the dark frantically. "It could be in the water but it's much more likely it's in the air, better atmospheric dispersal. She's got what, seven helicopters?"

"Eight," Kara corrected grimly. "You want me to take you up there?"

Dr. Kieran looked a little ill, but she set her jaw grimly and nodded. "Just give it a minute first, a few of the decoys will probably reveal themselves." A missile broke away from one of the helicopters, shooting directly towards the giant silver Supergirl statute. Dr. Kieran sighed. "Should have known that was gonna happen," she muttered as the ground shuddered and quaked, bending her knees to absorb the shock. Silver Supergirl slowly toppled to the ground with an ear-splitting crash, her face half-melted and the color of lava.

In the sky, the helicopters broke into two groups, four hanging back and four heading closer. They hovered over the Waterfront's pavement, opening up doors and letting out nearly a dozen black-suited agents zippering down on ropes each, their noise louder than thunder. Six black DEO vans screeched up, and Alex hopped out of the lead vehicle, a huge rifle in her arms, shouting into her earpiece. "Nearly fifty enemy agents by my estimate, let's move fast and take them down with your stun guns first, I want Teams Delta and Charlie up front, requesting more backup immediately for fuller coverage!"

Kara frowned as she felt one of her knees tremble under the next blast, this one under the water as well. She was the Girl of Steel, her knees weren't supposed to tremble. The black-suited agents were getting closer, all their faces covered by balaclavas unfortunately similar to Dr. Kieran's. Kara stepped closer, and a certain weakness began pervading her body. She gasped out in pain as the deadly familiar sensation began to creep up.

"Kryptonite," Kara groaned, moving closer to Dr. Kieran to make sure she didn't lose her in the fray. The black-suited agents of Lillian began firing, and Kara darted in front of Dr. Kieran, holding up her cape to protect them both, not sure she could take a bullet right now. The DEO scrambled to take cover and the bullets began to fly in earnest as Kara shoved them farther to the side, everything slower and heavier under Kryptonite's influence.

"Don't you have a Kryptonite shield?" Dr. Kieran sounded near-frantic, hands reaching out but stopping just short of touching Kara, hovering in fear.

"It's for weaponized blasts, not radiation," Kara groaned, shivering under another wave of it. "It won't help here. They're probably all firing with Kryptonite bullets," she realized, glancing towards the massive firefight, which was practically glowing green and blue with otherworldly elements. "Which--" she sucked in a painful breath, "I'm not gonna last much longer like this, I have to fly you up now and get away to catch my breath, so I can get you out of there when you're done. Which helicopter? Can we go now?"

"Hang on." Dr. Kieran was fumbling around in her pockets, and Kara wanted to curse her. _Hang on?_ What part of _I'm not gonna last much longer_ did she not understand? "I know I put it in here--aha! Here." She pushed a red-and-black plated box into Kara's chest without ceremony as bullets continued to fly not twenty feet away, over the Kryptonite shield, and stepped back minutely, still in the shelter of Kara's cape. "Let go of the cape," she instructed, and the box started to _move,_ adhered to Kara's suit already. The side paneling opened up and began to stretch out like a cat waking up from a nap, moving slowly at first, then more rapidly, an urgency taking over its movements as more and more of its material covered Kara's body, unfurling an impossible amount from such a small space.

The material sheeted down Kara's body, unfolding and folding over every inch of her suit, crawling over fingers and boots in instants, and at last curling around her curls, closing down over her face with a shiny shield. Kara panicked in the claustrophobia, the terror of being trapped in something Dr. Kieran had made, she had tricked her all along, she knew it, this was wrong--

But she could breathe.

Kara sucked in a deep breath as she could still hear Alex shouting in her ear over the sounds of the firefight. _Breathe in, one, two, out, one, two. In-one-two out-one-two._ Kara looked down.

A beautiful, shimmering, bulletproof suit _with pants_ covered her body, form-fitted to every curve. She held up one hand in wonder in front of her face, flexing and marveling as it moved with her easily, perfectly. She looked up at Dr. Kieran, watching her with something between fear and hope in those green eyes.

"Better?" Dr. Kieran asked faintly, and there was something so _goddamn_ familiar about it, but this wasn't the time to chase it.

Kara nodded in wonder. "How did you--"

"Later, Supergirl. Fly me up. Now."

"Yes ma'am. Hold on tight."

Dr. Kieran stepped in closer, looped one arm around her neck, and hooked her fingers around a handle in the new suit Kara hadn't noticed by her ribs upon first inspection. Kara took off fast, one arm wrapped around Dr. Kieran's waist, holding her tight as she raced towards the helicopters hanging back. "Which one?" Kara asked, not-at-all surprised to hear Dr. Kieran's breathing heavy in her earpiece, knowing she didn't have to shout.

"The one in the back of the diamond formation. That'll be it."

Kara zoomed them closer, pulling up to see four people inside the helicopter. Even without wanting to use her freeze breath or heat vision, two well-placed kicks were enough to put the security men into the ocean. Kara set Dr. Kieran down carefully on the floor of the helicopter, picking up the engineer with one hand easily and pinning the pilot back to his seat with her other hand around his neck.

"Autopilot," Kara growled out. "Now." The pilot struggled for a moment, then flipped a switch clearly labelled and Kara tossed them both out the helicopter towards the water, screaming. She turned back to see Dr. Kieran staring at the device while her fingers typed furiously with one hand on a tablet she had pulled out of a pocket, shaking a chemical that was glowing red in the other. "What's next?" Kara asked, and Dr. Kieran shook her head.

"You're on damage control duty. Go fight her minions. Protect everyone else. Come get me when there's a boom."

"That's not the plan," Kara said, frowning and stepping forward.

"Yes, it is." Dr. Kieran wasn't looking at her, still typing furiously with one hand, now patting her pockets with the other, red-glowing test tube tucked in between two fingers as she patted, kneeled on the relatively steady helicopter floor now.

"Most of it is," Kara corrected. "The boom part was not. You don't know what happens when there's a boom."

"K--Supergirl, I need you to go. I need you to trust me. I need to do this, _now_."

"I'm not going to wait for the helicopter to explode for you to--"

" _Oh, Agent Danvers. So good to see you again. Where's your little pet Super?"_

Kara felt her eyes go wide inside her new helmet. She rushed to the side of the helicopter. Lillian's voice echoed through the night, above all the gunshots and the helicopter thunder, magnified from the LEXOsuit. Great.

"Go save Alex," Dr. Kieran snapped. "I can handle this."

"I," Kara was scrambling. "I can't just leave you--"

"Kara! Yes you can!"

 _Kara?_ Kara stepped closer, the world washed away for just one moment. "What did you just say?"

Dr. Kieran didn't even hesitate. She reached up and tore off her mask.

Lena Luthor kneeled before Kara, still in Dr. Kieran's black bodysuit and armor, looking away for just a moment from her world-saving mission, looking at Kara and only at Kara, not even able to see her eyes, but Lena's green eyes shining just the same.

Relief. Strange and rushing and all-consuming, coursed through Kara first, in the span of half a millisecond, that Lena was the safest she could be, here next to Kara. Her best friend, unharmed before her. Her best friend, very much about to be harmed, any second. Then came the rage. Rage for the _flirt,_ for the _lies,_ for the way she'd done things for so long, for _this is where you've been locked up all those nights._ A million other things, good and bad, all in under a second, too fast to process, faster than a speeding bullet by far.

Then it was just Lena. Lena who couldn't see her face because of the fancy helmet she made her, but said, "Let me, Kara. Let me. Trust me for half a minute and go save your sister." And hell if Kara didn't trust this woman.

Kara flew out of the helicopter. She had about thirty seconds of clarity of her emotions pressed into a little box in the back of her mind, and she was going to make the most of them.

Kara's usual first move of heat vision was most likely unavailable to her--funny, how that was the one least likely to work here. Like the obstacle in her way was more a bouncing board to get a better leap forwards. Okay. She could play this game.

Lillian was slammed in the ribs not four seconds later with a Kryptonian going at max velocity. Kara nearly broke the sound barrier with how hard she punched her. Lillian flew nearly a mile before crashing into the water, her skid causing a wave big enough to surf on. She picked herself up, flying back towards Kara, but Kara was ready. She dodged to the side like a bullfighter and caught at Lillian's ankle, slamming her towards the ground below. The LEXOsuit made a crater a foot deep, but Kara didn't stop to admire the damage. She plummeted after her, driving into the chest of the suit as hard as she possibly could with her feet, knees braced for impact.

Twelve feet deep in the ground, the LEXOsuit sputtered and cracked open, unable to take three super-powered blows at full power in under ten seconds, leaving a groaning Lillian, mostly undamaged but probably severely bruised. Kara leaned over and picked her up bodily, hauling her up with one arm and flying out of the hole she had left. She sped them over and dropped Lillian at Alex's feet.

"This is yours now," Kara said shortly, catching a stray bullet that would have grazed Alex's arm. "I'll go handle the rest of them."

It was almost too easy. Unhampered by any stray thought other than that as soon as she handled them she could go back to get Lena to safety, Kara moved faster than lightning. Faster than the Flash. She sped down their line in a heartbeat and a half, knocking guns into the bay, catching stray bullets, and tossing them onto their backs in a sweeping row. Easy.

The DEO agents rushed towards their disarmed enemies.

Kara leaped into the sky, racing towards the helicopter she had left Lena in, Lena's voice triumphant in her ear now-- "Got it!" And Kara felt a nearly dizzy rush of relief--

All eight helicopters exploded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *plays what makes you beautiful Laugh Version*


	4. sorry about that cliffhanger, but not really

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i think i gave yall sufficient fluff to make up for that last one

Lena was smart.

That was the single fact Kara clung to as she zoomed towards the blasts, time slowed down for her.

Lena was smart.

The helicopters didn't totally explode, just their engines, that was clear now as the fires eased in the night, blinding imprints still left on her eyes. Alex was screaming something incomprehensible in her ear, but none of that mattered.

Lena was smart. She put on her armor. She had armor. She had plans. Lena was smart.

The fire in the sky now was heading towards the water slowly, a gentle sort of plummet, all orange and gold in a floating mass, like a deflating balloon drifting towards the ground at a child's birthday party. Like the helium was losing its touch, second by second. Silhouettes etched themselves against the orange, debris and bodies, and it was beautiful in a way, all lit up against the night sky.

Lena was smart. Lena was smart. Lena was smart.

Kara slowed down as she soared through the mess, heedless of the fire against her new suit, looking everywhere, _everywhere--_

There.

Kara caught a lifelessly falling Lena in her arms just past the edge of the airborne blaze, cradling her softly as she soared away from the heat, circling around gently to land at the edge of the Waterfront.

"Lena," Kara said, panicking as she set her down. " _Lena_."

Lena was smart. Lena was smart.

She had clearly jumped _away_ from the explosions the second she had realized they were going to go off, a reaction against whoever was deactivating the chemical death plan to wipe out all the aliens. The bullets had stopped, and Kara reached up to yank at the helmet Lena had made her-- _Lena had made this for her--_ and tugged it off with an effort, setting it down haphazardly to x-ray an unconscious Lena desperately as she leaned down to check her breathing.

She was intact. Air came in and out of her lungs and her heart still beat its steady, familiar and soothing beat, a little piece of wiring over her chest out of place that Kara suspected was her heartbeat cloaking tech, broken. Nothing big was broken. A couple broken ribs on the right side, clean breaks that would be easy to heal. But she was unconscious.

Her armor had protected her from the worst of it. She had jumped away from the worst of it.

Lena was smart. Lena was smart.

Kara breathed in deep, feeling the Kryptonite thankfully gone from the air. "You did it," Kara murmured, reaching for her hand, smoothing back Lena's hair from her face, watching her chest rise and fall evenly.

She sat down on her butt and held Lena's hand and watched the fire rain down from the sky.

 

Lena woke up after three hours in the DEO medbay, an exhausted Kara by her side.

"Hey," Kara whispered urgently as Lena sat bolt upright with a gasp and a panic. "Hey, hey, I'm here, I'm here."

Lena took in a shuddering breath, squeezing Kara's still-suited hand, eyes tracking her face in relief and wonder. "I did it," she said, shutting her eyes tight. "The helicopters exploded, right?"

"They did," Kara confirmed, and Lena nodded, taking a deep breath and slumping back against the bed.

"That means I did it. I did it," she whispered weakly, opening her eyes and rolling her head to look at Kara with a disbelieving kind of success. "I did it."

"You did it," Kara whispered back at her. "You did it. You saved us. You saved me. You saved everyone."

Lena nodded and fell back asleep.

 

"Anything we can do to wake her up sooner?"

"Let her rest, Kara. You can talk to her later."

"It's not that--" _itch,_ "It's that I don't know how to get the suit off without breaking it without her and I really have to go to the bathroom."

 

It was another three hours before Lena woke up, and Kara was _just_ considering asking Alex about the science behind sweating out the liquid in her body so she didn't have to go to the bathroom so bad.

"Oh thank Rao," Kara said, at Lena's side in an instant as her breathing quickened and her fingers flexed.

"That eager to see me?" Lena murmured, eyes half-open and lips half-quirked.

"Please tell me how to get this suit off so I can go to the bathroom."

Lena's laugh rumbled through her in gasps, and she reached over to do something Kara didn't have the concentration to follow, and the suit collapsed the way it had gone on her, but much faster. Kara was gone in a quarter of a second, returning in twelve seconds with another burst of superspeed and a huge dash of relief, smiling when she saw Lena curled up on the medbay bed, still laughing.

"You know the helmet could tell you everything, right?" Lena wheezed, tears streaming down her face, clutching her broken ribs in agony but unable to stop laughing. "Voice commands and stuff. You didn't really think I left you without a way to go to the bathroom?"

"Someone else picked it up when I took it off," Kara muttered, too relieved to see Lena looking healthy enough and laughing to feel overly embarrassed. Yet. "I don't know where they put it and I didn't want to leave you."

"You're precious," Lena decided, laying back and wincing. "And I will laugh more when my ribs are not broken."

"You can laugh all you want," Kara promised, smoothing down her cape and skirt and moving to take Lena's hand, brush a kiss across her knuckles soothingly. "Alex is gonna check up on you, okay?"

Lena squeezed her hand, nodding. "Stay?"

"Always." Lena's stomach growled, and Kara grinned. "Anything else I can get you?"

Lena leveled her with a look, sheepish and hopeful and something else all at once. "Mac and cheese?"

 

 

They went back to the Waterfront. Lena was hopped up on drugs, after nearly a full day of recovery, Lena sleeping away the hours in between meals, Kara running around reporting and on damage control. They sat there in the night, propped up against the base of the fallen Supergirl statue just before the dawn, watching as the dust settled. Kara was wearing the suit under a DEO issued t-shirt, a blazer of Lena's thrown over the top, and Lena had no idea how she fit the suit into the tight blue jeans she was wearing but desperately wanted to know. Kara looked too exhausted to answer with the enthusiasm Lena thought the question deserved though, so Lena tabled the matter, settling for watching Kara tuck her glasses into an inside pocket of the blazer and run her hand through her loose hair.

Lena finally took a deep breath, smoothing down her own DEO t shirt and shifting in her armored pants she wore as Dr. Kieran. "I know I'm not one hundred percent in my right mind," she started, and Kara shifted to watch her in the rising light, "But I think I should say that I'm sorry."

"For saving the world?" Kara asked incredulously. "I think we should be _thanking_ you."

Lena shook her head. "For lying to you," she clarified. "For running away and probably freaking you out. For being a supervillain and not a superhero."

Kara scoffed. "You're not a supervillain, Lena. You're not capable of that."

"How many times did you tie me up?"

"And how many times did I lie to you the same way you lied to me? If I'm mad at you, I think you should be mad at me. You went out as Dr. Kieran maybe half a dozen times, and you were deeply annoying most of those times, but you never even hurt anyone."

"You lied about being a superhero to protect the people close to you," Lena insisted. "I made you choke on your own spit and blew stuff up. Those are two different things."

Kara rolled her eyes, still watching Lena's face as her skin started to glow in the rising sun. "Yeah, okay, I might be a little upset about the way you flirted with Supergirl as Dr. Kieran."

"Hot and bothered is more like it," Lena muttered, quirking an eyebrow and suppressing an evil smile as Kara glared. "Sorry. Couldn't resist. I couldn't tease you like that as Kara, I had to let it out _somewhere,_ and Supergirl was too much fun to torture _._ "

"You could have teased me like that as Kara," Kara pointed out. "Kara Danvers would have taken it a lot better if it were coming from you than Supergirl would have coming from Dr. Kieran." Lena eyed her quietly, examining this new, quieter, calmer version of Kara. Someone that was in between Kara Danvers and Supergirl. Someone that was probably a lot more honest than either of them could usually afford to be. Kara gave her a near-mischievous half-smile. "If that's the extent of your real evilness, I think we're gonna be okay," she added.

Lena was quiet for a moment, hand on her ribs, watching the sun peak over the horizon. "Yeah?" She said quietly, and Kara looked over in question. "We're gonna be okay?"

Kara reached over and held out her hand, palm up, fingers open. Lena considered it for a moment before slotting her fingers in between Kara's, holding on tight. Kara closed her fingers reassuringly. "You just saved the world, Lena. Again. And you mean too much to me for me to be mad--hypocritically mad, by the way--about a couple little white lies while you were doing good things and some bad flirting. I think we'll be okay."

"Hey!" Lena protested, laughing. "My flirting was not bad! It was--"

Kara had cut her off with lips pressed against hers.

"Okay," Lena breathed as Kara pulled back after a long moment, drinking in the moment and absolutely still in case Kara decided to kiss her again. "That works too." She took a deep breath, inching backwards to trace the fingers of free hand against Kara's cheek, watching her in wonder. "I wasn't expecting that," she admitted quietly.

Kara shrugged, holding Lena captive by the easy confidence and love in her eyes, by the surety she had in Lena and both of their feelings now all the puzzle pieces were together, by that wonderful person that hid between a cape and glasses. "You took the last leap," she said, smiling as Lena's thumb reached her lips. "Figured it was my turn."

 

 

 

"Hey," Lena said, nudging Kara's thigh with her toe, the pair of them spread out easily on the couch, Lena's feet tucked under Kara's leg to keep warm. Kara rolled her head on the back of the couch with a questioning _mm,_ her hair in a messy bun that was halfway falling out, boots and cape off but suit on, glasses halfway down her nose because they 'helped her concentrate' on the screen as she edited an article. Lena was momentarily washed away in a wave of contentment, a bone-deep feeling of privilege that she got to see Kara Zor-El like this. Lena swallowed. "What are you doing next Friday?"

"Next Friday as in the day your ribs are officially scheduled to be one-hundred-percent Alex Approved for Any Activity?"

"That would be the one."

Kara smirked, pushing her glasses to the top of her head and stretching. "I don't know, my girlfriend might be planning to take me on a big date now that she finally can. That's what I'd do if I were her."

"Oh, yeah?" Lena asked, fighting unsuccessfully against a smile. "Where would you take yourself, if you were said girlfriend?"

Kara shrugged, cracking the knuckles in all her fingers in an impressive stretch. "I don't know. That's up to her. I'd never deny her the joys of the creative process."

Lena rolled her eyes, pushing her up her own thick-rimmed glasses, and Kara smiled so big her whole face scrunched up adorably. Kara winked, salaciously, and Lena felt the now-predictable and pleasurable flip of her stomach. Kara bent and pressed a kiss to the skin at Lena's knee, and the flip was washed away in warmth as Kara smiled, turning back to her article.

Lena went back to watching the tv, still thinking. After several minutes, Kara finished up her article and closed her laptop with a satisfied sigh and a _be right back,_ reappearing on the couch with a burst of wind in sweats and a t shirt, hair loose and wild and glasses gone. She leaned back parallel to Lena, feet slotting in between Lena's, closing her eyes. "Hey," Lena said, and Kara cracked one eye open. "What if I cooked for you? Instead of going out?"

Kara's grin was slow but excited. "Yeah," she said, her smile big. "I'd like that." Her toes poked gently at Lena's calf, and Lena wriggled deeper into the couch to avoid the ticklish touch. 

"Next Friday then, Zor-El. Don't make any plans. You're mine." Kara's ears turned pink as she giggled.

 

Kara showed up at Lena's on Friday at six, taking an appreciative breath of the delicious smells in the ear. Lena smiled as she let her in, making a show of taking Kara's coat.

"What a gentleman," Kara teased, and Lena's laugh was bright and loud.

"I'm not positive you'd say that if you saw the plans I have for you," she shot back, and Kara felt herself go red. "Kidding," Lena added. "For now, anyway."

Yeah, the Dr. Kieran side of Lena was definitely coming out. Kara found she didn't mind. Not when it was Lena. "I look forward to them someday, then," she told Lena sincerely, pressing a kiss to her cheek before letting Lena get back to whatever was simmering in a huge pot on the stove. She observed in satisfaction the line of red creeping up Lena's neck. "What have you made me?"

"You'll see," Lena said cryptically. "No x-ray vision," she added sternly, and Kara raised her hands in surrender.

"Yes ma'am--hang on, you better not have tried to make Danvers macaroni."

Lena scoffed. "Chill, Kara. I'm not above reverse engineering it, but that would take more time in my lab than Alex allowed me to put in over the last few weeks."

Kara rolled her eyes as Lena turned back to the stove. "Reverse engineering it chemically wouldn't make it turn out right," she informed Lena. "And you're still not getting the recipe, so don't go getting any ideas."

Lena shrugged, unperturbed. "Guess I'll have to marry you, then." She glanced back to wink at Kara.

Kara turned so red she had to check that her heat vision didn't activate by mistake.

Yeah, she could get used to this whole dating-a-fake-supervillain thing. When it was Lena.

 

 

 

"Hey," Lena murmured eight months later, kissing Kara's shoulder, and Kara squirmed as her fingers wandered slowly closer to dangerous territory under the sheets, slipping in the space under Kara's t-shirt and tracing the waistband of her shorts over skin, torturously light. A brand-new ring glinted on her left hand. "If I'm marrying you, you know what that means?"

Kara's back arched under the attentions, and she rolled onto her back, closer to Lena, Lena shifting back and then settling on top of Kara, knees bracketing hips and hands settling on the mattress framing Kara's head. "Do tell," Kara murmured back, one eyebrow raised. "Because I sort of thought it meant you were marrying a superhero."

Lena smiled, her eyes radiant in the dawn as she shook her head, settling her weight low on Kara's stomach and hips. "That's a part of it," she allowed. "But no, I was thinking--" she frowned as a new thought occurred to her and she sat up straighter, Kara's eyes following her lazily, hungrily. "I really should have known it was you, huh?" She looked back down at Kara. "Who else would feed me Danvers macaroni? You'd never give out that recipe, even to a superhero. Of course it was you. I should have put that together _so_ long ago."

Kara laughed at the wonder of the new revelation on Lena's face, completely unable to help herself. "Babe," she said through her laughter, "If I hadn't asked you to marry me last night, I would have right now."

"Shut up," Lena muttered, but Kara continued to giggle. "I was trying to build _you_ a new suit to save your life, and I knew I had a good chance of dying when it all went down. You only fed it to me once or twice."

"Still," Kara insisted, smiling hard, reaching for Lena and smoothing her hands up her arms soothingly. "I just think it's adorable that you think you should have put it together based off the macaroni alone."

" _Speaking_ of the macaroni," Lena said, leaning forward again, and Kara's stomach erupted into butterflies at the dark intention in Lena's eyes, "That was my original point." She smiled, all sorts of victory written all over her face, and yep, Kara definitely made the right choice asking her to marry her last night. That face still did _all_ sorts of things to her. Lena smirked like she could see Kara's eyes going wide. "I get the recipe if I'm a Danvers," she breathed against Kara's lips, and smiled into her fiancée.

Kara smiled back into her, her whole existence _so_ happy. "You want to have macaroni on the menu for the wedding?"

Lena sat up slightly, her eyes lit with joy at the possibility. "You're serious?"

Kara sat them both up, kissing Lena hard. "I am if you are," she promised, and Lena nodded into her forehead.

"That would make me…. Very happy."

And so the morning passed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have a thing for breaking lena's ribs and them getting married, apparently.

**Author's Note:**

> There's another chapter that'll wrap it up I swear, ao3 just hates me and I can't make the chapter buttons work the first time around, like, ever.


End file.
